We Are to Fulfill the Law
Scripture: Matthew 5:17Devotional Series: The Good Shepherd
Teaching: The Good Shepherd pt. 1 (SUN_AM 2021-03-07) by Pastor Star R Scott
This doctrine of independence, having been promoted over these hundreds of years, is not a new thing. We saw it in the conflict with Korah and Dathan against Moses. In Numbers, Chapter 14, if you remember what had happened, the spies had come back from going into the Promised Land with an evil report, and God brings them the rebuke and reproof and says, “You have said these ten times that I brought you out here to kill you, so you’re going to die. As truly as I live…, as ye have spoken in mine ears, so will I do to you: your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness.” And, of course, the people then responded to the judgment of God by saying, “Okay, we’ll obey; we’ll go up.” He said, “Don’t go. If you go, you’re going to get whipped.” We know the story: Look at verse 39, “…the people mourned greatly. And they rose up early in the morning, and gat them up into the top of the mountain, saying, ‘Lo, we be here, and will go up unto the place which the Lord hath promised: for we have sinned.’” Moses responds in verse 42, “Go not up, for the Lord is not among you; that ye be not smitten before your enemies.” Verse 44: “But they presumed to go up unto the hill top: nevertheless, the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and Moses, departed not out of the camp.” So, we see the judgment of God: God had said, “I will give you a land that flows with milk and honey,” but these men constantly complained, “You have brought us out here to kill us; our children will become prey.” If you look back at verse 31, it says, “…your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have despised.” Despising God’s promises, the preeminence of truth being what we perceive and what we think and what we feel and what we see (“There are giants! There are walled cities!” after God had just said, “I’m going to give them to you,” amen?) is Antinomianism.
Those like Caleb and Joshua have another spirit and say, “We are well able: let us go up at once and possess this land, praise God!” Don’t you want that spirit in you that was in Joshua and Caleb? I don’t care what circumstances are, I’m going to possess what God said I can possess, my healing, the salvation of family members, a profitable time in witnessing as He opens doors of utterance. What we are going to see is that this secret power of lawlessness is another expression of Antinomianism. Antinomians are those who don’t accept the full authority of the Word of God, who don’t feel that we, as liberated Christians, have any responsibility to submit to the Law, but are free to be led by the Spirit, free from the curse of the Law through Jesus Christ so, therefore, these things that restrain behavior no longer pertain to them. They took the attitude of the Gnostics who basically said, “We are pure in our spirit; we are eternally secure, so we rest in that; and the Law is of no effect and of no consequence to us.” It’s a bit of Calvinism. But if you think for a moment, we have to go back to Jesus’ ministry where He said, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law…: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill” (Matthew 5:17). You see, nowhere do we as Spirit‑filled believers have any liberty to walk free from the same ministry and same spirit as Jesus. We, as Spirit‑filled believers, are to always fulfill the Law through our obedience to the lordship of Jesus. The Law is good (amen?) if a man uses it lawfully. This spirit of Antinomianism that’s in the churches today, when we go out and present to many in the professed church the biblical requirements, God’s mandates for what the fruit of a man living and walking in the spirit are, you will often get this kind of response: “Well, we are not under the Law anymore.” No, we are not under the Law of sin and death, but we are under the Law of righteousness and holiness and truth.
Those like Caleb and Joshua have another spirit and say, “We are well able: let us go up at once and possess this land, praise God!” Don’t you want that spirit in you that was in Joshua and Caleb? I don’t care what circumstances are, I’m going to possess what God said I can possess, my healing, the salvation of family members, a profitable time in witnessing as He opens doors of utterance. What we are going to see is that this secret power of lawlessness is another expression of Antinomianism. Antinomians are those who don’t accept the full authority of the Word of God, who don’t feel that we, as liberated Christians, have any responsibility to submit to the Law, but are free to be led by the Spirit, free from the curse of the Law through Jesus Christ so, therefore, these things that restrain behavior no longer pertain to them. They took the attitude of the Gnostics who basically said, “We are pure in our spirit; we are eternally secure, so we rest in that; and the Law is of no effect and of no consequence to us.” It’s a bit of Calvinism. But if you think for a moment, we have to go back to Jesus’ ministry where He said, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law…: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill” (Matthew 5:17). You see, nowhere do we as Spirit‑filled believers have any liberty to walk free from the same ministry and same spirit as Jesus. We, as Spirit‑filled believers, are to always fulfill the Law through our obedience to the lordship of Jesus. The Law is good (amen?) if a man uses it lawfully. This spirit of Antinomianism that’s in the churches today, when we go out and present to many in the professed church the biblical requirements, God’s mandates for what the fruit of a man living and walking in the spirit are, you will often get this kind of response: “Well, we are not under the Law anymore.” No, we are not under the Law of sin and death, but we are under the Law of righteousness and holiness and truth.